Drives & Controls June 2022

32 n COMMUNICATIONS June 2022 www.drivesncontrols.com Open networks will help deliver 5G’s benefits T he UK government wants most of the population to be covered by a 5G signal by 2027, allowing the entire country to benefit from its promised social and economic advantages. Three main factors set 5G apart from 4G. These are: n Speed 5G is much faster than previous generations of wireless technology with speeds at least 5-10 times faster than 4G. This means that large files can be transferred in seconds rather than minutes. n Greater capacity 5G allows thousands of devices to be connected in a small area at the same time. As everything becomes connected, this will be increasingly important. n Low latency The reduction in the time between instructing a device to perform an action and that action being completed means that 5G is also more responsive than 4G. 5G enables data to be transmitted and received with almost no delay. It can therefore support all sorts of time-critical services and applications. In industrial applications, 5G’s high bandwidth capability enables a greater density of sensors, meaning more data and with machine learning, greater and quicker insights and analysis. It can therefore deliver many benefits to industries and end-users. For example, sensors used in manufacturing will improve machinery efficiency and 5G will help businesses to transfer data securely and quickly along supply chains. It will deliver greater flexibility, lower costs, and shorter lead times for factory floor production reconfiguration, layout changes, and alterations. Because 5G allows faster connections between devices, connectivity is vital, and an average of 2GHz of additional mid-band spectrum will be needed by 2030. To drive the social and economic advantages that 5G is expected to deliver, broadband costs will have to be reduced and economies of scale delivered by extending mid-band spectrum availability – including the 3.5, 4.8 and 6GHz ranges. This will improve mobile broadband and fixed wireless access, and enable the further development of the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0. The UK government’s 5G Diversification Strategy plans to grow the telecoms supply chain while ensuring it is resilient to future trends and threats. It has three core strands: supporting incumbent suppliers; attracting new suppliers into the UK market; and accelerating the development and deployment of open-interface solutions. In December 2021, the government and mobile network operators announced a joint goal for 35% of the UK’s mobile network traffic to be carried over open and interoperable Ran (radio access network) architectures – commonly known as O-Ran – by 2030. The current Ran architecture comprises a remote radio unit (RRU or RU) at the top of a cell tower that communicates with a baseband unit (BBU) at the bottom of the tower. While these systems have worked well for mobile network operators, they have drawbacks. For example, making any upgrade or change to the wireless network requires physical hardware to be replaced throughout the network – a costly and time- consuming process. Because mobile network operators must replace or upscale existing equipment to deliver 5G services, this gives them the opportunity to adopt O-Ran architectures. The O-Ran uses proprietary hardware and vendor-defined communication interfaces, and its software-driven functions are integrated tightly inside the hardware. However, the proprietary designs lock operators into existing relationships with the vendor that originally supplied them. Virtualising O-Ran and replacing proprietary interfaces with standards-based interfaces allows equipment interoperability and multivendor O-Ran deployments. This gives network operators more flexibility to pick and choose among best-of-breed technologies. By opening the market, currently dominated by a handful of vendors, to new suppliers, O-Ran can not only lower costs but also prompt greater innovation through competition, as well as allowing operators to avoid restricted vendors. One of the most compelling attractions of O-Ran architectures is their potential to lower the cost of owning networks. By allowing operators to aggregate baseband functions using a single virtualised BBU to support multiple radios, O-Ran reduces hardware cost and enables smaller, simpler and more energy-efficient installations. Also, because they allow operators to use software to push out network functions and intelligent automation, virtual architectures can speed the rollout of new services, instead of having to rip out and replace complete physical systems. Virtual architectures can also “future-proof” investments in the physical network. The ability to replace individual O-Ran components with off-the-shelf hardware from any vendor can improve flexibility as well as cutting costs and downtime for system scaling and maintenance. n Open networking architectures could speed the rollout and cuts the costs of 5G services, allowing industry to reap the rewards of faster speeds, lower latencies and higher data capacities. Phil Evans, business development director for connectivity at the testing and certification organisation TÜV SÜD, explains.